Bill Burke's selection of important PhotoBooks Photography

Bill Burke teaches a class at the Museum School that deals with the production of a photographic books and sequencing of images. Bill has experience with this, having produced a number of incredibly powerful and important photography books of his own, namely I Want to Take Picture (1987, reissued in 2007), Portraits (1987) and Mine Fields (1995).

At the beginning of this semester’s class, he handed out a list of about 50 photo books for everyone to look at and brought in some great stuff from his collection (including a 1st edition copy of Walker Evan’s Many Are Called). With just a quick glance at the list I could identify Bill’s photographic bias but, nonetheless, it’s an excellent selection that includes a few books I’ve never seen. I recommend sitting down with any of these if you find the opportunity. With tanks to SHANE LAVALETTE

Here they are, as Bill had organized them, by year:

1928 – Die Welt ist Schon by Albert Renger Patsch

1930 – Atget Photographe de Paris by Eugene Atget

1933 – Paris de Nuit by Brassaï

1936 – The English at Home by Bill Brandt

1937 – You Have Seen Their Faces by Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell*

1937 – Beauty of the Olympic Struggle by Leni Reifenstahl

1938 – American Photographs by Walker Evans

1939 – An American Exodus by Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor*

1939 – Changing New York by Bernice Abbott

1941 – Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agee

1945 – Naked City by Weegee

1952 – The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier Bresson

1955 – The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Roy Decarava and Langston Hughes*

1959 – The Americans by Robert Frank

1959 – Jazz by Ed Van der Elsken

1961 – Perspective of Nudes by Bill Brandt

1964 – The End of the Game by Peter Beard*

1964 – A Way of Seeing by Helen Levitt

1966 – Many Are Called by Walker Evans

1966 – Every Building on Sunset Strip by Ed Rusche

1966 – Andy Warhol’s Index by Andy Warhol

1968 – The Bikeriders by Danny Lyon*

1969 – The Animals by Garry Winogrand

1970 – Anonyme Skulpturen by Bernd and Hilla Becher

1970 – East 100th St. by Bruce Davidson

1970 – Self Portrait by Lee Friedlander

1970 – Diary of a Century by Jacques Henri Lartigue

1971 – Tulsa by Larry Clark*

1971 – Conversations with the Dead by Danny Lyon*

1972 – Diane Arbus by Diane Arbus

1973 – Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy

1973 – Suburbia by Bill Owens

1974 – The New West by Robert Adams

1974 – The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine California by Lewis Baltz

1975 – Vagabond by Gaylord Herron*

1976 – William Eggleston’s Guide by William Eggleston

1976 – The American Monument by Lee Friedlander

1976 – Carnival Strippers by Susan Meiselas*

1977 – Evidence by Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan

1979 – Lisette Model by Lisette Model

1980 – Citizens of the Twentieth Century by August Sander

1982 – A Loud Song by Danny Semore*

1983 – Telex Iran by Gilles Peres*

1983 – The Lines of My Hand by Robert Frank*

1985 – Rich and Poor by Jim Goldberg*

1986 – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Godlin*

1986 – O Rio de Janeiro by Bruce Weber

1986 – The Last Resort by Martin Parr

1991 – Fait by Sophie Ristelheuber

1994 – Menschlich by Christian Boltansky